Resource use by pharmacists providing paediatric services Alice

Resource use by pharmacists providing paediatric services Alice Burridge Aston University

Contents Introduction Method Results Conclusions

Introduction What do we know about the resources pharmacists use to support their decision making when providing paediatric services? What impact might this knowledge have on development of technology used by pharmacists such as electronic prescribing and electronic health records?

Method Self completed online questionnaire. Questionnaire was distributed via email by the NPPG. Design of questionnaire informed by prior focus groups with pharmacists and other healthcare professionals and literature review.

Results – most frequently used resources 1. Patient notes ◦ Used daily by 90% of respondents. 2. Patient results ◦ Used daily by 78% of respondents. 3. BNFc ◦ Used daily by 75% of respondents.

Results – most useful resources 1. BNFc 2. Guy’s and St Thomas’ paediatric formulary 3. Neonatal formulary

Results – lack of paediatric prescribing information What type of paediatric information is lacking? ◦ ◦ ◦ None – 6% Lack of access to information – 15% Links to individual patient factors – 28% Paediatric doses – 32% Lack of advice other than ‘caution’ – 51% Availability of paediatric formulations – 64% ◦ Other – 29%.

Results – lack of paediatric prescribing information Does lack of paediatric prescribing information affect patient care? ◦ Yes = 62% ◦ No = 14% ◦ Don’t know = 24%

Results – is there a difference in difficulty between prescribing for children and prescribing for adults? 3 types of response: ◦ Yes, children are more difficult. ◦ No, there is no difference. ◦ Don’t know. Why?

Conclusions There is no single resource that meets the information needs of pharmacists. Developers of hospital IT systems should consider the information needs of pharmacists in order to help facilitate their work in improving medication safety in hospitals.

Questions? burridam@aston. ac. uk